Dear all,
I am about to buy a SP-registered airplane and have received conflicting information on how to go forward.
I will transfer the plane to Germany after delivery and I am considering to re-register the plane in Germany. The experiences a lot of people have with the LBA make me think if this is a wise move, as this might easily lead to the plane being grounded for quite some time. Obviously, this is something I would like to avoid in summer.
Furthermore, the soon-to-be-former owner has painted the SP registration on the aircraft so changing it would require a paint job.
Therefore, I am considering in earnest to leave the plane on the SP registration.
Does anybody has experience in having a plane SP-registered while it is actually operated in another EASA country? As I do not speak any Polish, does this pose a factor? Can I use a German shop to maintain the airplane?
Regards,
Oliver
No personal experience but at Lelystad we have a school operating SP registered aircraft without any problems.
I maintain an SP registered plane in Germany. The German CAMO had to prepare a maintenance program and submit it to the Polish CAA for approval. So that’s doable.
After buying the plane in France, I remained on F register with French CAMO to do the class rating and some flying. After that I moved to SP with maintenance in Germany. It took about two months. Maybe you could do the same. Remain on SP to do some flying now and move during winter.
Just out of curiosity, is it from plane4you?
If it’s an ELA1, you can have a self-declared MP. No need to contract a CAMO for it or to have it approved by the NAA. Maintenance can be done by any European company, or by yourself.
Re-registering is pretty straightforward with the LBA. It took us 2 weeks going from N-Reg to D-Reg. (I would go the route during winter anyway, summer is for flying).
Moving registry is potentially a huge can of worms.
Even within the EU…
The “best” stories (yes I have a few) cannot be posted, even dis-identified, because the original owner is going to get very upset when the buyer reads EuroGA and recognises the “situation” 
Be very careful with this.
If you can keep a Polish reg in Germany legally then do so.
I don’t see reason why to move aircraft from one registry to another within EU, especially when there’s no legal requirement to do so.
I would recommend staying on the original registry. See no good reason to change.
I think you should keep it on SP. You can still do every bit of maintenance in Germany. I bet Poland have lower fees as well so it should be beneficial.
